


The Long Way Home

by greenofallshades



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: Depression, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Oral Sex, Pain, Smut, Suffering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 01:10:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12570332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenofallshades/pseuds/greenofallshades
Summary: Anna Strong has been captured by the British from the Continental camp and pressed into service in a field hospital.  She is forced to confront unexpected truths when a dying John Graves Simcoe is rushed into the hospital and placed in her care.





	The Long Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> This work is set during the events of episode 409, after John Graves is shot by Abe. I've been obsessed with poor, suffering, depressed SickCoe (wish I could remember whether rapid-apathy or tavsancuk coined that particular wonderful pun). He needed something to make him feel better, so I wrote this.
> 
> My apologies to history and to Elizabeth Gwillim. If fic couldn't be self-indulgent, what would be the point?

For many weeks, it was almost a certainty that the death Anna had so often wished upon Simcoe would finally come to pass. After numerous botched attempts by assorted people to end the Colonel’s life, a ball rode the law of averages right into his gut, destroying flesh and spilling much precious blood. That which was left soon became tainted and hot with sickness.

Anna was rolling bandages in the field hospital when Simcoe was carried in. She had been captured by the British and pressed into service as a nurse, and though she naturally resented being forced to care for enemy soldiers, she nevertheless had to admit that she had been treated well. The men she nursed were grateful for her care, and she had been told she would be up for a prisoner exchange soon. 

The commotion at the front of the tent made her look up, and at first, all she saw was the green of a Ranger’s uniform on a stretcher. But then, though the face was obscured by a mask of blood, she saw the length of the body in that uniform, and the shock of copper curls, and recognition kicked her in the stomach.

She watched, hand to mouth, the swarm of frantic yet focused attention around John Graves Simcoe as his boots and all of his clothing were stripped from him, exposing an ugly gushing wound in his side. The doctor in attendance called for her help, and since then she had found herself in the ironic and completely unforeseen position of struggling to keep him alive.

She hadn't wanted to do it. God, no. Not then. In fact, at first she did her job by rote and wondered what might be the best way to dispatch him so that she would not be suspected.

But then the weeks passed. 

The strutting, physically powerful officer she'd known, whose natural dominance caused other men to move out of his way and shrink before him, was nothing but a Setauket memory. This man cried out as the ball in his side was gouged from destroyed flesh. At the time of the operation, she was occupied outside the tent, but the sound raised the light hairs on her arms. Later she found him shuddering and shocked.

This man endured the long black nights of pain, twisting, trying in vain to suppress his own groans, soaking the thin mattress with his sweat. There was not even a draught of spirits to ease him. He suffered until tears wet his cheeks and he turned his face away from her in shame. In spite of herself, Anna felt pity swell inside her, suffusing her body with a yearning to reach out and brush the sweat-matted hair off his forehead. 

But she did not. She kept herself to the duties at hand.

Then Colonel Simcoe’s blood became tainted and the fever set in. At its worst, one could feel the heat coming off him, and Anna was sure his body could not bear the onslaught for much longer. 

For most of the time he was delirious. He didn't know her when she attended him, which, to her surprise, made her a little wistful for his reaction when he first saw her upon his arrival here. 

She recalled hurrying to answer the doctor’s call. Simcoe's eyes widened until the lids disappeared, startling blue set into a mask of red. Even in his crisis, he was able to rasp, “Mrs. Strong? Why are you here?”

“Held prisoner at present, Captain,” she said curtly.

“Colonel,” he choked out. “I was promo---”

“Colonel, if you want to live to see General some day, stop talking,” the doctor snapped. 

So he did, but his eyes kept returning to her, as though his shock at seeing her again was as great as that of finding himself shot and potentially bleeding to death.

The next day, Anna was folding freshly laundered linens when the doctor stopped by and took a clean cloth to wipe his face and hands. “I take it you have a history with Colonel Simcoe, Mrs. Strong?” he asked.

Anna looked at him sharply. She saw nothing to indicate the question was borne of anything but idle curiosity. 

“I suppose you could call it that,” she replied. “Although it isn't what you might be thinking.”

“It's none of my business, of course. My interest is limited to the welfare of my patients. Last night when we removed the ball from him, you were working elsewhere, but he asked for you.” 

“Did he?”

The doctor nodded. “It was bad for him, as it is for all of them. We needed three men to hold him down, even after the blood loss. He wanted to know where you were.”

“Well...that’s the captain, I'm afraid. Or the Colonel. He's always been that way. I didn't encourage it”---but you did, and more than once, she thought---”and I can't stop it.”

The doctor looked at her wordlessly for a moment, and nodded. “I understand. That's your affair, of course. But sometimes I find that the condition of the patient’s mind affects the body's healing...a singular perspective, I’ll admit, but there it is. Colonel Simcoe will likely not survive this, but if it gives him a measure of comfort to have you near…” He gave a slight shrug and left. Anna was left feeling vaguely as though she'd been scolded. 

And so Anna was the one who bathed him with cool water when the furnace that was burning him up inside made him kick the sheets off, and she tucked blankets around him during fits of chills and shivering. Always he ran with sweat, and a supply of clean rags was needed to mop his face and his neck. 

Once, she walked in to find him fevered and senseless, apparently lost in a scene from his past. He was weeping and calling out for Percy, for someone to catch him, the current was too fast---and then, Mother, I tried, I’m sorry.

Anna sat down in a camp chair near the bed and put her head in her hands. His anguish and his tears and his cries pierced her through, and she was completely unprepared for it. 

As his nurse, she'd seen his unclothed body many times, but the piteous quality of his lament left him naked in a profound, gutting way. She rose, knelt beside the bed, and folded her two small hands over his large one. She soothed him with her voice until he slept, bleeding pity and emotion for him. When she left his bedside, she felt raw all over. 

On another evening, Simcoe floated up to semi-lucidity and watched her as she moved about the tent. When she approached his bed, he looked up, earnest and searching. “We made love, didn’t we?” he asked.

She was momentarily speechless.

“Last night. Remember…”

Anna quickly looked around to make sure no one was overhearing this. The intimacy of his words and the intensity of his gaze affected her in a completely unexpected manner.

Weak as he was, his hands found hers and gripped them tightly. “I made you cry out. I didn’t dream it.”

She managed a smile. “You didn't dream it. Yes, we did,” she replied, feeling a flush warm her cheeks.

That seemed to ease him, and he slept. Rest did not come easy for Anna that night, however. She kept thinking of what he had said---”I made you cry out.” Only febrile ramblings, but…

Nothing was as it used to be and she didn't even know her own mind any longer.

Of course she remembered everything John Simcoe had done. She'd actively conspired to have him killed, after all. But she also remembered the things others had done in the service of this war. Was he really any worse?

All she knew for certain right now was that the night was warm and she was wide awake, and she was very conscious of her body. An image of the colonel in his sickbed came to her---gripped by fever, sheet kicked off the bed, his naked body sheened with sweat. 

Anna turned over onto her stomach. All of the sensitivity in her was gathered into one place.

Accustomed as she was to seeing the colonel in full uniform, she never imagined the body that hid beneath the layers of clothing. Had never given it a thought, unless to fleetingly (hopefully) envision a ball socking itself into his chest or a blade gutting him. 

No...the strong musculature, the broadness of the chest with its blanket of wiry hair...the aggressive masculinity so like Simcoe in a way, yet hidden and waiting to be uncovered. 

Damn it, just stop. She was on the verge of falling headlong into a fantasy of being fucked hard and deep by John Simcoe, and what did that even mean? He was a sick man, it was shameful, and what about Setauket? 

But, God...him driving deep into her, her legs wrapped around his body (I made you cry out)...her hand crept down between her legs, beneath her cotton nightdress to the throbbing there, and she gave herself relief. Her eyes were closed the entire time, imagining Simcoe above her, and when she came, she saw his face.

And so, despite the odds against him, Simcoe did not die. Anna found that she no longer had any interest in his demise, nor was she displeased that he remained among the living. 

Gradual healing of his body began, but the colonel’s spirits were low. When Anna came to tend him, she always found him quiet and withdrawn. Not rude, he was never that---in fact his manners toward her were as unfailingly polite as they had always been. But something seemed to have left him along with the poison in his blood.

She herself employing a certain extra gentleness when she bathed his face and neck, and when she touched him. He seemed to crave it, and to be grateful for it, closing his eyes as she tended him, his tired smile thanking her when she was done.

Now that he was improving, his body often responded to her care in a way that embarrassed him and amused her. Sometimes it was only a bedsheet that became tented, and sometimes more was revealed when she bathed him; Simcoe at full mast was an impressive presentation. During those times Anna washed around his hard member, aware that touching it, and possibly eliciting an involuntary response, would place them both in a new place of intimacy that went beyond seeing him unclothed. 

He mumbled an apology, and she smiled. “I’m not a maiden, Colonel. Be thankful you’re getting stronger.”

At night, however, when sleep was slow in coming, her mind produced pictures of what might have happened had she touched him...tracing her finger from his testicles, up the underside of his shaft, over the soft tip. Would he have gasped or moaned? Would the muscles of his stomach have contracted with pleasure? 

Anna realized that the conflict she felt in her soul about this man was dying. She was making peace with the fact that her hatred of John Simcoe seemed to be a thing of the past. It didn't matter how much she tried to resurrect it, returning to those old feelings and poking and prodding them to see if a spark of life was left. However it might have happened, the early days of the war seemed to her an idealistic black and white time of long ago. In its place was a more temperate present, with shades of gray softening and blurring the rigid edges of feelings that belonged only in the past. 

For a while, this truth startled her, and she tried to resist it. But distance in both time and place, and most of all her growing familiarity (intimacy?) with the subject of her hatred was wearing her down.

Prior unwanted attentions, obsessive infatuation...how much did any of it matter now? As for past acts of violence, her own friends were likewise guilty. Caleb and his men had brutalized an elderly man and destroyed his property, but they had dismissed it, hadn't they. She knew that Simcoe had received hard treatment at Caleb's hands, as well; who could say what that would do to a man?

Now that the colonel was slowly improving, his rank accorded him a more private place to rest and strengthen. He was transferred to an occupied house farther away from the front lines---- a handsome, stately structure, now home to a British general who was not in residence at the moment. 

The doctor informed Anna that she would be moving into the house to continue caring for the patient. “We both know that he does well when you're near.”

Anna’s face flushed, and she began to speak, but the doctor cut her off in a manner that was not unfriendly. “Mrs. Strong, please, as I’ve said, I assure you it does not matter to me what your past relationship was, or wasn't.” He hesitated, and looked at her steadily. “Or what it might be.”

Anna returned his gaze, saying nothing.

Simcoe was given the room which belonged to the master of the house, and she found herself in the chamber across the hall and slightly down. It had belonged to a young woman; there were linen and cotton underthings in the drawers, or what was left of them after the occupant snatched what she could prior to being hastily evicted. Anna found dresses and shoes and various other somewhat ghostly representatives of a life interrupted. 

The two of them, Simcoe and Anna, settled into a quiet routine. Regaining strength was a slow process for the colonel, but stubborn as he was, he insisted on doing some things for himself now. She suspected that discomfort at being dependent or a belief that he was a burden spurred his insistence.

Anna attempted to engage him in conversation at times, but with only moderate success. When he looked at her, the longing was still in his eyes, but now it was muted, dispirited. As if he finally understood that she, like everyone else, cared nothing about him and besides, he would be leaving her behind forever, soon.

Nighttime rain streamed down the windows as Anna sat on her bed, naked. She knew that Simcoe was in his bath and would soon be retiring to bed. She, on the other hand, didn't feel like sleeping. Her nerves were taut and there was a ball of tension in her stomach. But she was filled with anticipation, too, as she loosened her hair and let it fall like a glossy dark curtain around her shoulders. 

Asking herself again if this was the right thing, if she really wanted it, the answer that came was yes in both cases. If she could take care of her own need, which had been building for quite a while now, and in doing so give Simcoe some transitory happiness, then why not.

Standing up, she reached for the silk dressing gown she found among the abandoned garments and slipped it on. Her skin felt alive as the soft material whispered across her sensitive nipples. She ran her hands down her body as she imagined the tall ginger colonel in his bath, slick and wet, knees spread wide, soaping himself all over. 

Anna left her room and crossed the hall. She knocked on the door to his chamber and cracked it open.

He was in his bath, as she had expected, and he looked only slightly surprised at her entrance. 

“I thought you were in bed, Mrs. Strong,” he said. “I’m fine here. No need to trouble yourself.”

She crossed the shadowy room which was warmed only by the hearth and a few candles. “I can't sleep tonight, so I came to look after you,” she replied. Forestalling further protest, “It’s all right. Hush and I'll wash your hair for you.”

Anna heated some water over the fire, conscious of his eyes on her in the silken gown, feeling the way the material slipped over her body as she moved and bent. Her senses were heightened, her skin so receptive that the touch of the silk felt like a caress. 

When it was just warm enough, she removed it to a basin and went to kneel behind the colonel. She poured the water over his hair and began to lather his unruly mane of russet hair. She remembered how those curls never seemed quite tamed, even tied back with their customary black ribbon.

She didn’t speak as she massaged and scrubbed, satisfied to watch as he allowed himself to relax into her hands. He let his head fall backward and closed his eyes. 

Anna looked at the strong, thick column of his neck and the hard-carved jawline. As she observed him, the chiseled muscles of his belly tightened, and his legs opened a little wider. She knew he was becoming aroused by her touch. Yes, she could see him swelling and lengthening beneath the water. 

Her breath was coming more quickly.

Finishing up, she rinsed his hair with another basin of water and caught up his dripping hair in a towel.

“I’m surprised no one has shaved you yet,” she said. Her heart pounded as she touched his rough beard and let her finger softly trail down his cheek.

Simcoe twisted around to look at her. She said nothing, but moved from her position at the back of the bathtub to the side. In doing so, she untied the cord of the dressing gown and let it fall open. 

The expression on his face was one she would remember for the rest of her days as he stared at her breasts, at the nipples pushing the thin silk outward, at her thighs and belly and the shadow between her legs, then back up to her face. She knelt again and took the soap from his nerveless fingers, and began to wash his upper body.

After staring at her for several moments, he asked, “What are you doing?” After everything that had happened, he was distrustful, cautious.

“What does it look like I'm doing?” she responded, soaping his shoulders and his chest in slow, luxurious swirls. 

“You presenting yourself here like this is unexpected, to say the very least. Unless you're simply unaware that your gown has fallen open.”

Anna stopped and looked at him, her arms resting on the side of the tub. “John--”and there was that same old look in his eyes at her use of his Christian name, as though he felt it physically---”Setauket is so far away it might as well not exist. I don't know where I'm going to end up after the war, but I’m not going back. And I'm not holding onto things that happened there.” She paused. “I don't need apologies or justifications, and I don't feel the need to offer them. None of it matters any longer. Do you understand me?”

His impossibly blue eyes had never left her face. After a moment or two, he responded simply, “Yes.”

“All right. Stand up, now..”

Simcoe complied without a word, rising from the water like a tower from some ancient underwater city coming up from the sea. Anna observed that his body was still strong and muscled, even after his long sickness. Water streamed from him and his swollen cock jutted forward.

“You're going to splash water on a fine lady’s garment,” she said. She moved to stand in front of him and let the dressing gown slide off her shoulders onto the floor. Naked, she washed every inch of him. She soaped and rubbed his erection in long, slow strokes, listening to the hiss of his breath between his teeth. 

“Sit down,” she instructed.

Simcoe obeyed, and Anna climbed into the tub with him. She settled herself on his thighs, his erection between them, and the warm water embraced her. Sliding forward so that their sexes touched, she poured water over the colonel to rinse off the soap, but was interrupted when he grasped her face in both of his hands, pulled her close, and kissed her.

He was hungry for her, that much was clear and had always been, but he didn't crudely devour her as some men would have done. He took his time. As the kiss deepened and became intimate, Anna ground herself against his rock hard shaft, wanting more of him, wanting him in her, but still loving his soft lips and tongue. 

When he dropped his mouth to her wet, slick breasts and began to suckle her nipples, she felt a shock of pleasure which traveled to her center, and she knew she couldn't wait any longer or she would be in risk of coming here on his leg, before she could begin to make love to him. Endless nights in her solitary bed with no companion but her imagination had made her so.

Anna rose up on her knees and guided him to her entrance. She lowered herself---carefully, because despite her readiness, he was quite large. Fitting him in, working him in, loving the feel of his hardness sliding all the way up inside her.

“Oh, John”, she sighed as she began to rock back and forth with him filling her up. 

Her soft, trembling exclamation, made in these intimate circumstances, was the astonishing fulfillment of a longing Simcoe had long ago abandoned as futile and foolish. Now, the unexpected turn of events, coupled with his tired spirits, made his eyes gleam with sudden tears.

Appalled at himself, he turned his face away, but Anna had already seen. 

Large hands came around and gripped her ass as she rode him. Leaning into him, clutching his strong shoulders, she was caught up in chasing her pleasure. Simcoe’s lips burned a trail down her throat. The bathtub became like a tiny encapsulated sea, waves slopping water over the side onto the floor.

Anna stilled, her thigh muscles tight and tense; she was getting so close. Kissing him, their tongues dancing together, she drew back and whispered, “Wait.”

Rising, she turned around so that he faced her back. He slipped out of her body, but only for a moment. Anna guided him back in, and, mindful of his healing wound, carefully lay back against him.

“Am I hurting you?”

“You’re driving me mad, is what you're doing,” he groaned, and she smiled. 

Her nipples were so stiff and sensitive, and when he caressed them, she couldn't restrain the moan that escaped her lips. At this point, the doctor or Simcoe's entire regiment of Rangers could have entered the room; she thought she would continue fucking him until she came, regardless.

When she resumed her rocking, those large hands with their long fingers slid down her belly and under the water, and found her swollen clit, and that was it, she was done for. 

“I'm going to come, I can't help it,” and the next moment she shuddered and gasped as her orgasm swept through her. Simcoe felt her inner walls pulse and tighten around his shaft. He wrapped his arms around her and held her. 

“I've been thinking about this for so long...I couldn't hold back,” Anna said ruefully after she came down, enjoying the feeling of resting in his embrace for a moment. “Let’s go to bed and I’ll take care of you.”

“What do you mean?” Simcoe asked, looking up at her as she rose out of the water and toweled herself off. His cock was as hard as when they'd began, and it throbbed almost painfully. But her words distracted him. “You were thinking about us---together? For how long?”

“For all the nights in my bed when I couldn't sleep because I was imagining what I wanted to do to you. And have you do to me.” She held out her hand. “Come with me. It's your turn.”

The colonel accepted her hand and got to his feet, his mind adjusting itself to this new miraculous turn of fortune. He stood as she dried his body and led him to the large carved mahogany bed. 

Simcoe lay back on the pile of pillows, and Anna climbed in next to him. She bent to kiss him and closed her hand around his erection. He was long and thick, and the skin was like velvet. He cupped her breasts in his hands and moaned into her mouth. 

Slowly, her lips traveled down his body, through the thick chest hair, and past the pink nipples she teased to hardness with her tongue. She continued to the flat hardness of his belly with its furrow of hair leading downward and the cup of the navel. 

Noticing with pleasure the way his stomach shivered and contracted at her touch, Anna kissed and licked her way to his inner thighs, carefully neglecting---for the moment---his poor straining, desperate cock. Then she swirled her tongue around his balls and licked the entire length of him, from root to tip, as she held his eyes with her own.

Simcoe groaned and pressed his head backward into the pillows. 

She plunged down as far as she could go and set to her task, working fast, using hard friction, then stopping momentarily, only to return and tease the soft tip with her tongue. A large hand gripped her head; a breathless exclamation of “my God” reached her ears, and she smiled around his shaft in her mouth. 

Taking his testicles in her hands, tickling the area below with her finger, alternating deep sucking that took him to the back of her throat (as much as possible, considering his size) with luxuriant caresses of her lips and tongue, Anna brought him to the edge. His hand in her hair squeezed involuntarily, and what began in his throat as a whimper became a loud, prolonged “ah-ah-ah-ah” as he spasmed his climax, and she took everything he had into her.

Watching him come aroused her all over again, but it was late, he was still not well, and it would have to wait.

Simcoe turned to her as she climbed in and pressed her warmth next to his. “I’m not quite sure I believe what just happened,” he said. His voice was rough from illness, almost a growl, really; she found it quite agreeable.

“Then you think I made the right decision to interrupt your bath by stripping and climbing on top of you?” Chestnut eyes glowed up at him and she lay with her leg across his. 

“Please, interrupt me in that manner whenever you feel the need. You’re the most desirable, lovely thing I’ve ever seen.” His arm was around her, caressing her bottom and her hip. They kissed, and Simcoe bore her gently onto her back. His hand found her sex, already wet again; he stroked and massaged, and she felt herself respond to him. He slipped a finger into her silken depths.. And she remembered her resolve.

“Not right now,” she gasped, gently taking hold of his wrist, though all she wanted was for him to go deeper, to press and thrust against his hand. “It’s late and I want you to get your rest.”

“How can I think about rest with you here like this?” he asked. “Anna---”

“I know. I want it, too. But it’s for the best, and while you sleep I can take some time to think.”

“About what?”

“About my plans...what I’m going to do later, when all of this is over. Not...this. I mean the war. My mind has been preoccupied lately, thanks to you, and I haven’t had the chance to give it consideration.”

“Aren’t you very pleased about the outcome? At this point it seems your rebels are going to win. Considering the work you contributed to the cause...” The colonel’s tone was wry, but only just. Anna was not the only one who had left certain things in the past. 

Passion put aside for now, the two of them were curled comfortably against one another. For a few moments Anna was silent, biting her lip, lost in thought. “Yes, of course I am, I couldn’t be otherwise. It’s just that I’m not sure where I’ll go, yet. Certainly not back to Setauket. I’m done there.” She reached across his middle and touched the skin surrounding his healing wound with feather softness. “No pain there any longer?”

“None. You nursed me well.”

“Oh, the doctor deserves the thanks for that. I only followed his instructions,” she said, rising from the bed and crossing the room to snuff the glowing candles.

“Anna.” The colonel propped himself up on his elbows and watched her approach, naked in front of him and perfectly at ease. “If you persist in walking around like that, I will never be able to sleep.” His cock was hardening and lengthening again, and he wanted her to see it.

“I beg your pardon, Colonel, you will sleep, no matter how big that thing gets. You’ll just have to endure until the morning.”

“Stay here tonight,” he invited. “Sleep with me.”

She snuggled against his large, warm body, and she knew she didn’t want to leave him. “I will.”

“But I must ask (she knew it was coming, and grinned inwardly), what happens in the morning?”

Anna’s dark brown eyes tilted up to his. “Use your imagination. We can play, and when you’re completely healed and able to exert yourself, I’ll expect a proper fucking.”

His soft, hissed exclamation, his pressing of his head back into the pillow, and his cock at full mast, and she was laughing.

“I’m sorry, truly. I’ll stop.”

“Probably best for the moment. I take issue, however, with giving the doctor all the credit for my recovery. I was despondent when I was brought here. I genuinely wished for death. Your presence was…”

She waited. “What was it, John?”

“It was a reminder of a time when my heart was alive. When I thought had someone to live for.”

A small pain contracted around her own heart. She had once thought this man inhuman.

“Then, even during the worst of the fever, I knew you were there. Always. I knew that you held my hand, and that you stayed with me until I could sleep. I suppose I...felt safe. Safe from what, I’m not sure. Perhaps the realization that my death wouldn’t matter to a single soul on earth.”

“You mean the way I feel now.” she whispered.

Then she was being lifted by the strongest arms ever to hold her, and held tightly against his chest. “Our circumstances are not the same,” Simcoe said. “Not at all. You have friends. People who care for you.”

“Who have lives of their own to lead. I can’t attach myself to them and be their burden. I won’t do that,” she said matter-of-factly.

There was a heavy pause; things unsaid were about to be made into words which could not be taken back. Simcoe’s lips parted, about to speak, and closed as if he thought better of it. Finally:

“Attach yourself to me, then.” 

Anna saw him swallow hard, saw his nervousness. She was momentarily carried back to a dim cellar filled with ale barrels, the raucous uproar of soldiers in the tavern above, and a tall, newly-minted captain in his red coat, drunk enough to think a stupid joke was a proper overture, but reduced to stammering awkwardness by the mere touch of her hand on his shoulder.

“Come with me to England if nothing is left for you here.”

“What would I do in England?” she asked, smoothing his curls back from his forehead. 

“Be with me. I don’t know what is in my future or where I will go, but if you would consider sharing it with me, I promise I will take care of you and work to make you happy.”

“John, if I said yes, wouldn't you wonder if I were doing so out of desperation?”

“I can spot a lie,” he said simply. 

Anna was silent, breasts pillowed against his chest, toying and playing with the thick hair. He was beginning to think he had made a serious mistake in asking when abruptly her eyes filled with tears. She bit her lip and tried to hold them back, but they spilled onto her cheeks. In response, Simcoe took her face in his hands and kissed her with infinite tenderness. 

“I'm actually very glad you didn't die,” she sobbed. 

A wide smile broke over his face. “We have a basis to work from, then.”

“There was just so much that I...I know I said I wouldn't voice regrets or apologize, but I…”

“Don’t,” he whispered, closing his eyes in contentment and pressing her face into his shoulder. “You said it earlier, and you were right---none of it matters any longer. Beautiful Anna. Let us start from here.”

They slept that night with their bodies intertwined. Anna awoke once in the early hours with the unsettled sense of being in an unfamiliar place, but the warm feel of his skin against hers, arms wrapped around her, and the clean smell of him soothed her right away...soothed her heart, in fact. 

She fell into slumber and dreamed of babies with liquid dark eyes and copper curls.


End file.
